The invention relates to a filling valve for metered delivery of a flow of medium.
A filling valve of this type is known from EP-A-0 480 346. The known filling valve has a valve body with a drop-shaped lower end. The medium may be supplied under pressure in order to allow a specific amount of medium quickly through the outlet opening of the filling valve into a container, such as a bottle, which is positioned beneath the outlet opening. However, requirements are imposed on the stability and the velocity profile of a jet of medium coming out of the filling valve and the impact force of the medium in the container, in order to minimize foaming of the medium in the container and thus the time required to fill the container. These requirements can be satisfied to a certain extent by using the drop shape.
Furthermore, the inventors have found that the best way to satisfy the abovementioned requirements is for the downwards velocity of the medium of the jet to be uniform over the entire cross section of the jet. To achieve this, the surface of the lower end of a valve body gradually changes in the downwards direction, preferably becomingly increasingly vertical and ending in a sharp point.
Furthermore, the surfaces of the lower ends of the said valve bodies are smooth.
Therefore, said valve bodies have the drawback that, after the outlet openings have been closed, in which position a bottom section of the lower end of the valve body projects outwards, medium which remains suspended from this bottom section can easily flow towards the bottommost point of the valve body. Consequently, one or more drops may be formed in the vicinity of the point and then fall off the point. Dripping of this nature is often extremely undesirable, since the drops may contaminate following containers and/or the filling machine of which the filling valve forms part. Especially in the case of aseptic conditions, such as those which are used for filling containers with milk and juices, it is possible that the aseptic, hygienic quality cannot be ensured, the containers may be inadequately sealed, and it is possible that labels will fail to adhere or will not adhere to a sufficient extent, with the result that numerous maintenance and cleaning operations may be required.
The object of the invention is to eliminate the abovementioned drawbacks.
To this end, the invention provides a filling valve for metered delivery of a flow of medium. This ensures that the medium which is located at the lower end of the valve body after the filling valve has been closed remains where it is, spread over the steps of the stepped lower end of the valve body. This allows dripping to be prevented to a considerable extent.
The filling valve is suitable both for media without or with fibres, such as fibre-containing fruit juices.